Professional Killers(1972)

Professional Killers is a Japanese period series set in Edo, where assassination was an underground trade. Hanemon runs Otowa, an agency that poses as a labor broker but secretly arranges contract killings. When timber dealer Katsugoro Iseya hires them to eliminate construction magistrate Hanno and his corrupt associate Tatsumiya, Hanemon accepts—bound by a strict code to kill only those who harm society. The needle doctor Baian attempts the first hit but fails. Desperate, Hanemon turns to Sanai Nishimura, a skilled but impoverished ronin living in a tenement, who takes the job in secret from his wife and child. As the conspirators close in on their targets, tensions mount between duty, morality, and survival in this tense drama of hidden violence and conflicting loyalties.